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I just finished reading this very long and very detailed article on medical bills and hospital economics. And it confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about how and why our health care system is so shitty.

One thing I'm wary about is all the recommendations that the writer makes towards the end. He advocates more government control in the most heavily regulated sector of the economy. And all that regulation is making it harder and harder for physicians to own their own practices.

Hospitals are on a buying binge, acquiring independent practices left and right and forcing them under the hospital's umbrella, where they then have greater negotiating power with insurers and patients.

One thing we can't do is massive, sweeping reform. If you could design the health care system from scratch, obviously it would look much different from what we currently have, but that is impossible at this point. We need incremental reform in the right direction, and I don't think the ACA was a step forward. It's calcifying the labor market and making it harder for most individuals to gain health insurance. IE, the 29ers.

One thing's for sure, paying 20 dollars for a pill of aspirin is ridiculous.

Edit: The fact that the filter picks up on "pill" is ridiculous. Can we relax it just a little, forum mods?

The article mentions nothing about insurance paying pennies on the dollar. The article mentions nothing about the shortage of doctors. It mentions NOTHING about interstate insurance purchasing. It mentions nothing about hospitals going bankrupt left and right. It mentions nothing about the nursing unions. It mentions nothing about illegal immigrants. It mentions nothing about the state dumping patients onto the hospitals sticking them with the bill. It mentions nothing about doctors running unnecessary tests because of malpractice lawsuits. It mentions nothing about malpractice lawsuits. it mentions nothing about the fact that doctors earning 500K a year pay 100K for malpractice insurance. It mentions nothing about the fact that by law they must treat people no matter their ability to pay or if they have insurance. it mentions nothing about the fact that most hospital bills don't get paid PERIOD. Other than that...I guess it encapsulates the problem with the medical industry pretty well.

The article mentions nothing about insurance paying pennies on the dollar. The article mentions nothing about the shortage of doctors. It mentions NOTHING about interstate insurance purchasing. It mentions nothing about hospitals going bankrupt left and right. It mentions nothing about the nursing unions. It mentions nothing about illegal immigrants. It mentions nothing about the state dumping patients onto the hospitals sticking them with the bill. It mentions nothing about doctors running unnecessary tests because of malpractice lawsuits. It mentions nothing about malpractice lawsuits. it mentions nothing about the fact that doctors earning 500K a year pay 100K for malpractice insurance. It mentions nothing about the fact that by law they must treat people no matter their ability to pay or if they have insurance. it mentions nothing about the fact that most hospital bills don't get paid PERIOD. Other than that...I guess it encapsulates the problem with the medical industry pretty well.

I don't think you read the article. Because it mentions all of those things except for illegal immigrants.

Quote:

Originally Posted by casino is no lie

Link does not open. The forum is censoring something from the URL.

.../2013/02/20/bitter-******why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/

Yeah, I know. For some reason the forum is censoring pill with a - at the end. It's the top story on TIME right now. Just go to the website.

I realized it was longer after I posted my first comment but before you posted yours. No need to get so annoyed. In glad you learned a lot from that article, but there is nothing in it that I didn't already know.

Read the article and also listened to an interview with the author, Steven Brill. While I've always suspected that the medical/industrial complex was running a large scam of the American people and economy, I was still like, WOW!. The depth, breadth and extant of what is basically a systemically corrupt system is nonetheless shocking and breathtaking.

I've always wonder, given that our health care system costs our society about twice what that of any other modern industrial countries does, to mediocre overall results, where is that extra 50% of money going to? The answer seems to be to line the silk pockets of a vast number of people in the health care industry. It literally dwarfs the infamous military/industrial complex in terms of its reach into our society (and pockets) and lobbying power on the Hill. It quite literally is bankupting our society in the long term in ways far broader than, say, Medicare and Medicaid, whose fiscally issues are but secondary offshoots to the primary one of vastly bloated health care costs. Particularly galling was the discussions regarding the ostensibly "non-profit" hospitals which, in reality, are carefully crafted to be anything but -- they are in fact immense profit-generated machines for their companies and administrators.

To preempt some of the reflexive responses: no, the answer isn't some full-on socialism (who cares how the medical system in North Korea is, Denmark's, however, might well be worth a serious look); no, it doesn't mean rationing care or death panels (rather, it means broadening access and availability); and no, it won't result in lesser/substandard health care results (below our already substandard, bottom of the industrialized nation's list?), but rather, a far more efficient and effective overall health care system that delivers better results to more (all) citizens for significantly less money (half) than our current system does. Its not like such goals are pie-in-the-sky dreaming, many other advanced countries have already done this (reference: Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweeden, etc.), all for much less expense to their societies than our system.